Friday, 9 October 2015

An article by a junior

Hi guys, my name is Karan Trichal. I was AIR-2791 in JEE-Advanced 2015, currently a freshie @ IIT-Bombay, Metallurgical Engineering and Material sciences Dept. I am a KVPY fellow, and have done decently in JEE-MAIN as well.

As you are aware, JEE-Advanced is gateway to the premier tech institutes in the country, the IITs. But as portrayed by Master Dante (Dan Brown enthu anyone? :p), the road to heaven passes through hell. Why, I am talking of course about the journey you guys have already embarked on, or are thinking of taking up- the 2 years of JEE preparation.

Now, a journey is never considered well-rounded if you don’t meet different kinds of travelers right? So people, hello again. I used to be a fellow traveler on this path that you tread, only my way was fundamentally different to most of yours.

Guys, I have come through on the basis of SELF-STUDY. Probably my rank was quite affected by it, but the journey was an enriching experience for me, as I hope it will be for you.

To begin with, I am from a small town in Maharashtra, Amravati. While I was preparing, there was no good national level coaching class in Amravati, and due to some constraints, I couldn’t leave home to go to Kota or Hyderabad or wherever you are supposed to go to have a decent shot at a top rank. I did join a local center though, and guess what- we were without a maths teacher 3 months after the beginning of our prep!

Next earthquake- chemistry prof leaves!

Anything else remaining, I thought :P.. Hell yes, came the reply! Physics prof leaves 1 year into the preparation!

It was as if the Gods were spitting in the faces of the four kids who were unable to go to the coaching factories in the north and south of India.

Now, I’ll be honest- I did get quite a bit of help from our physics professor before he left. He finished up our physics syllabus in 8 months, and I will forever be grateful to him for that. But the rest is another story.

I prepared Maths ALL BY MYSELF. Read the theory, solved problems madly. Some things were understood easily, some took a lot of time to click. But eventually I did manage to figure them out by myself. Same went for chemistry. Prepared physical and inorganic chemistry ALL BY MYSELF. I had one prof who would help me with some of the intricate problems in organic chemistry, rest again I figured out by myself. In the midst of all this, life got marred by a personal tragedy.

Everything, it seemed, was pulling me down. But I guess I have that child in me who always wants to violate the tradition :p. So I just kept doing my hard work, with utmost conviction, and finally I did manage to land up here at IIT-Powai.

Guys, times were quite stressful and frustrating. We would sit for demo lectures with profs and it’d turn out that they knew lesser than we did. Sometimes a concept would be quite maddening to understand. Some things, especially exceptions in chemistry, would leave me in tears. The situation at our coaching centre would leave me tearing hair out of my head. But I don’t know how, I managed to keep putting one step in front of the other. A big part of that is due to my family.

So people, whichever situation you are preparing in, whether you do self-study or have good coaching, whether you have financial or any other sort of constraints in your home- JUST DON’T EVER GIVE UP.

Coming back to all of you, that is what the JEE is technically designed to do- test your nerves and perseverance. Take this year’s paper for example. The problems WERE tough, but workable. People lost out on speed and accuracy ( even I did, on accuracy).

Out of the three independent variables- speed, accuracy and toughness- one will always be in your favour, as per the choice of paper setters. Of the other two, you can master one in your preparation. But mastering both is what makes students like Aman different from the rest.

Guys, put in everything you can in these 2 years. The reward you eventually get will be sweet enough to make you forget the pain of the past years.

So driving home the point, coaching Junta, just keep your heads together, do the necessary hard work, keep your wits, and you will excel.

Self-studying Junta, just keep up with your hard work, solve as many varieties of problems as you can, stick as closely as possible to the syllabus prescribed, and you too shall succeed. In the face of extreme adversities, I did manage to achieve something on a moderate scale  so why can’t you?

Remember, self-studying Junta- ‘All those who wander are not lost!’ You guys are the Riders On The Storm, and you have as much probability of succeeding as those in coaching classes!

Hope to see ALL of you reading this article next year here at IIT-Powai!

100 comments:

Thanks so much! I am also a JEE aspirant and I have opted for self - study. I have no other tuitions save Maths. It is really encouragong to note that someone could acquire success in JEE and make it to IIT - Powai through self- study!

Not much to tell.Since you do not have maths tuitions, I'd suggest solve as many number of questions as you can. I agree with most of the books given by Aman, just add to that list- Advanced problems in maths by Vikas Gupta, Cengage publications and advanced problems in co-ordinate geomtery by vikas gupta. You'll find both vikas gupta books on Shree Balaji books' website. For physics add Anurag Mishra to the list(again Balaji Publishers) and for chem add J.D Lee sudarshan guha inorganic chemistry.. study inorganic very seriously!!Do as much practice n hard work as you can and you will be fine! :)

Totally false! Dude I had to prepare definite and indefinite integration THRICE!! Yes thrice, because it was never taught properly in my class. Ultimately did it on my own, but the point is if you dedicate some extra time daily to those chapters yourself, then they will be as well prepared as any you learnt in class! Just make sure you don't procrastinate on that additional bit of hard work :)

I am doing schooling along with coaching for IIT.... Will it be possible for me to crack IIT...as I get very less time for self study.... What should I do??? As till now all of my concepts are not so clear .....but I work hard a lot...

Never ask questions like 'can I crack IIT in so-and-so situation!' Of course you can, but you better clear up your concepts ASAP.. if you are appearing this year, I'd suggest you put in extra efforts to be VERY CLEAR on ALL concepts of ALL subjects.. remember that conceptual clarity is the only prerequisite for cracking JEE! :)

Thanx for ur suggestion... Sometimes some topics take more time to understand...and. This leads to frustration sometimes...... Does it happen with even others??

All books are good but which books can give all the concepts and numericals in physics or other subjects...I have tried DC pandey hc verma..and sometimes resnick halliday.... All seems to be good.... But can't read 3 books at a time... . can u suggest I will be highly obliged..

First thing- control your frustration.It is the most potently destructive force that ever could exist as far as your JEE prep is concerned. Coming to your question, I never read Resnick Halliday, so can't comment on that. I used Anurag Mishra by Shri Balaji Publications for some parts of theory, and mostly for numerical practice. H.C Verma is a must-do. For other subjects, I have mentioned the books I used in a comment above.

I used to do Resonance and Allen AITS dedicatedly.. later got Pace papers for free :p there were also some old FIITJEE AITS papers which I used to do if the fancy struck me :p You can follow Rrsonance/Allen and FIITJEE if you want to, though you already know FIITJEE AITS is not for the faint hearted :D so take your pick

Now, is it advisable to stick only according to the syllabus and whats in NCERT (only for organic chem ) or to move ahead and study some more reactions with mechanisms? eg In alkyl halides according to jee syllabus there are rearrangement reactions ,but there are lots of... how much reactions should i know ?

For organic chem, I suggest delving a bit into additional reactions. Sometimes they are asked as questions related to reaction mechanisms. So better to know the reaction beforehand than having to decipher it on spot right? :)

No need to google extra reactions, those given in some advanced books for JEE prep,like Jagdamba Singh, L.G Wade etc. should do the trick! And yes, be VERY thorough with ALL reactions asked previously.

You are a serious inspiration for me...but herez my problem ..I'm 2016 Jee aspirant ...I had brain tumor ..due to which my studies fell like a falling curve ...with hardly few months left can i get into nit atleast. ..none of my concepts are clear ...i dont be able to solve any complex problems ..i have dc pandey set of 5 books ..and balaji prabhath kumar for inorganic ...Dp bahadur for physical ...(ordered op tandon . Sk goyal coordinate jd lee organic...seeing your post ) ...i was a 10 pointer ....brightest in our batch ...but now after my recorvy as i look at my position i'm hardly able to score 30 ...being the prettiest girl in collage i have soo many distractions ...i feel like giving up every now and then. . The people who were getting lesser marks than me now score in 200 ...m very frustrated at my fate ....therez this largeeee syllabus plus our collage has exams on decemeber and preparatory om january that'll keep me occupied after january ...i feel as if i already failed in life ...could you temme what to do .....could you prepare a time table for me ? collage starts from 9:15-4:30 ..then i have jee classes the are revising while i hardly know the concepts ...

Uhh really sorry but you have to make your own timetable. I can only advise you on what to do. First thing would be to stop studying with any sort of burden.. Kudos to you for continuing with your prep after what you have been through. So relax and start studying without any weight of expectations. I'd advise you to focus on JEE-Main first and foremost.If you are from NCERT board, well and good because most of the JEE Main paper is going to come from there. You master NCERT, you wrap up 75% of your JEE Main syllabus. Try and finish up on past year papers of JEE-Main ASAP. Once your clg prep starts, you may not get enough time to study. As for the books you ordered, you can try a hand at them when you get time after finishing your syllabus. Most of them will deal with topics on JEE-Advanced level. Try your level best in JEE-Advanced. If, at the end of the year you feel dissatisfied with your performances in the exams, you can drop a year as well. And most of all don't give up; You never know what you can achieve with hard work and a little bit of luck :) All the very best!

Thank you so much .....I just want to get into a decent nit For now if most of the portions of jee main come from ncert how doesnt it benifit usual students who dont prepare for jee and just prepare for cet ..as only 4 gt selected for jee main from our place and they were the ones who prepared for jee . thanks a lot for replying once agin i will try my best from now .

Obviously, JEE-Main won't ask you simple straightforward questions like CET. So reading NCERT like you do for a state level exam won't suffice. You'd have to go into intricacies of the subject a bit, though not too much. So for a decent rank in JEE-Main you'd have to delve here and there. Eg- in maths you'd do well to finish off RD Sharma objective book. Most people don't put in this extra bit, and so don't get through. I had many people from my city who prepared exclusively for state board for 18 months, read NCERT for 6 months and got nowhere. A thorough go-through of the textbook is extremely necessary.

Extremely good article, thanks a lot! Even I am self-studying for JEE 2017, but I do have help from Resonance DLP+AITS. But everyone keeps saying that without joining a classroom program you cannot achieve a good rank at all. Would you please give me some good advice on how to get a <300 rank in JEE Advanced?

Reso DLP+AITS will take you a LONG way forward.. just remember to solve as many types of questions as possible in maths, clear up your concepts in physics and do a little bit of both for chemistry :p I have recommended some books above, I think they too will surely help (especially Anurag Mishra and Vikas Gupta: Epic books, both of them). One book I forgot to mention there is MS Chouhan's Advanced Problems In Organic Chemistry. Cracking book again.These books will give you a wide spectrum of problems.

Thanks a lot Karan, you have responded very quickly! I already have Arihant and some other good books for each subject, and I do not want too many books. Should I still go for the books you have recommended?

Choice depends person to person; I was fond of solving different varieties of problems,AND a little bit paranoid :p so I went for quite a large number of books.. If you feel the books you have are enough, not to mention the DLP, then no need to go for the ones I mentioned. Though I WOULD advise you to solve MS Chouhan at least once, because there really is no other book like it.

Hey um I'm the same girl who kept annoying you on Facebook :P I mean the one in Khushwah sir's class. Is it really necessary to use reference books for inorganic? I've been mostly told that ncert is enough. But if you think other books are necessary, I'll go through JD Lee.

According to me, JD Lee is necessary for JEE Advanced, not for JEE Main. In NCERT you get most of the things, but there's certainly more to inorganic chemistry than mugging reactions: complexes, salt analysis, chemical bonding (basically the things I used to ABSOLUTELY LOVE about inorganic chemistry) etc. have not been covered well in NCERT, that's why I took up JD Lee.

Hi, could you please tell me what all is extra in JD Lee than in NCERT? I am not able to buy the JD Lee book or get an ebook, but since JEE Advanced needs more for inorganic, I think I should go for Arihant Inorganic Chemistry that has a very good presentation of reactions.

Please clear this doubt and also as I already have very good concepts in inorganic (at least for JEE Main) could you please suggest what more should I do to master it for JEE Advanced?

A detailed chapter on salt-analysis, some extra reactions in p-block, a little extra theory on co-ordination compounds- these are just some of the things where JD Lee trumps NCERT. As for mastering it for JEE Advance, clear concepts will help in chemical bonding and complex chemistry. But a LOT of rattafication is also required to REALLY finish up Inorganic Chemistry for JEE- Advanced. p-block, d-block and salt analysis are hot topics in inorganic chemistry for Advanced. Keep revising some pages daily, or at least devote some hours of weekends to it, because reactions and tests are among the easiest things to forget!

Its indeed the best article that I have ever read.I m a dropper and I would be giving jee 2016.i need your advise on jee preparation.I have joined Allen' s AITS and embibe' s test series too.I m doing self study but I m not able to score good marks in test series of Allen.however I recently scored 67/120 in indefinite integration and 89/120 in p- block chapter in embibe test series.I had score d 86% in CBSE last year ..m weak in physics .can I really crack jee? Plz help

I can't really comment on your position by embibe test series, as I never appeared for it. However, in Allen, or for that matter any AITS, the number of marks you get does not matter; your AIR does. So check your AIR, improve physics(try some of the books I have mentioned in a previous comment), and surely you will have a decent shot at JEE.

Well, I guess if you are following decent books for physics prep(good Indian authors like Anurag Mishra, DCP, Cengage or whatever) then you don't need to follow Irodov, as most of it's better problems are given as solved examples and level questions in aforementioned books.

I have completed TMH jee mains and TMH jee advanced physics as well as my coaching study material in this 9 months of preparation.now i have 3 months left ,from which books should i solve numericals now h.c verma ,d.c pandey or cengage learning? M currently revising through Arihant's 36 years previous iit papers.

I don't think you should go for HCV at this time. I'd say go for Cengage, they have a decent collection of problems. But be VERY careful, as Cengage Physics has a lot mistakes, both in answers and solutions.

Dude. Instead of asking me to check my inbox in this comments section infy number of times, couldn't you have posted those very same doubts here? I will be much more receptive to ANYONE who posts here rather than e-mails me.

11th syllabus is over now according to you what should be done so that before starting of class 12 my command over 11 syllabus becomes perfect. I had solved hc verma and DC Pandey and in chemistry I had solved op tandon, in organic I had solved himanshu Pandey, in inorganic my I had solved vk jaiswal and in maths rd Sharma objective

I think you should do quite a lot of practice before you call your 11th syllabus 'perfect'. There are topics like mechanics, p&c probability etc which will require much working out. Go for more practice on the chapters you found tough in your first go, you can refer to books I have mentioned earlier. Else just pick up a revision package and finish off 11th standard chapters.

Hello Karan, as I have commented earlier above I am a Resonance DLPD student self-studying for JEE 2017. My trouble is that due to inevitable reasons I had to start my preparation in full swing only by October 2015. But I am determined not to waste my 11th and so I am working hard day and night (smartly though) to complete this year's syllabus along with whatever material I have (DLP+good books like DCP, HCV etc).

My situation is not hopeless but please Karan if you could give me some motivation and practical tips for my situation then I would be really grateful to you.

Also I was not able to give many tests this year, I mainly tried online ones with a "satisfactory" type of result. Will it be really bad then? I read in one of Aman's posts that tests are not a must in 11th but they are in 12th (which I intend to give).

starting late is okay, as long as you work hard and remove the backlog. Also, you are correct in assuming your situation is not hopeless. Tests actually do not matter much in 11th, except for mastering the concepts learnt. There isn't much you are losing by attempting fewer tests, except maybe losing out on a bit of accuracy practice. I guess you're going pretty much in the right direction, so just keep up with the studies!

Thank you very much. Then I think I can manage this year with online tests and a few full syllabus tests Resonance will conduct towards Feb. You are not a ray, you are such a strong beam of hope! Please recommend anything else you like.

Well, my interview was held at IISER Bhopal. Overall, it was quite a good experience. I was asked two of my favorite subjects, and I said maths and chemistry. The chemistry guy asked me about aromaticity, huckel's rule, whether cyclopropyenyl cation was aromatic, the mechanisms of cannizaro and aldol reactions, and the difference between them. From maths, I was asked about mean value theorems, what they meant graphically. I was the last one to be interviewed, so maybe because of that the panel members' patience was wearing a bit thin. But overall, they were friendly people, and the interview is an experience you would certainly enjoy!

Basic books like HC Verma are good to start off with. After that do some practice from a good objective book like Anurag Mishra, which provides quite a lot of good level questions. There's also the option of Irodov, but don't go for that if you have hcv and a good quality objective book, in my opinion.

Do you advise any additional book because i solved few Aits papers of 2015 and i was literally stuck with few questions...After looking at the solutions, i knew that the sums required 2 - 3 concepts that i knew very well, but somehow i couldn't frame the equations...I practiced from hcv and dc pandey about the same concept, but somehow couldn't frame them at that time...I think that getting practice of 'multiconceptual' sums might help me tackle these varieties...Please suggest how to deal with such problems..And lastly, thanks for bearing with such a long question..:)

Do you advise any additional book because i solved few Aits papers of 2015 and i was literally stuck with few questions...After looking at the solutions, i knew that the sums required 2 - 3 concepts that i knew very well, but somehow i couldn't frame the equations...I practiced from hcv and dc pandey about the same concept, but somehow couldn't frame them at that time...I think that getting practice of 'multiconceptual' sums might help me tackle these varieties...Please suggest how to deal with such problems..And lastly, thanks for bearing with such a long question..:)

Questions involving multiple concepts are not easily found in books, and they are the ones most frequently asked in JEE. They are mostly found in papers, and I think it is from there that you'll have to practice them.

Jagdamba Singh. Cengage has way too much of theory, which is not at all required for JEE Advanced. Jagdamba Singh has some errors, but it has good theory and is concisely written. It's definitely the better one of the two.

Hi Karan Bhaiyya,I have just entered class 10. I started to prepare for jee from class 9 itself. I did make quite some progress doing it. But I couldn't do things in a planned manner. Even though I did make plans, but they were not executed well enough. I was able to solve some some hc verma, irodov and loney, but I think that too was all thanks to my coaching teachers. Can you please suggest me how to overcome this problem. Also can you tell me which topics would be good for me to prepare this year ???

Hello Karan,I am having problem in finding the most relevant practice source for JEE Optics Problems.I am not very strong in solving optics problems which are highly conceptual(JEE Advanced standard).please help me out here by suggesting a book/package?

I would suggest you to try a basic book first (say HC Verma) and then move to Arihant books which have very good questions. For theory, I would recommend Resnick Halliday. You can find links to all of these books in the books section (that should help you find the appropriate edition!)